Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy 2)

She trailed her fingers over his back as she walked around him to the stove. “We’ll have good days and bad until it’s done, but until it’s done we have to live as best we can.”

He stared at the back of her head as she put on the kettle, and decided not to tell her Fin had said the very same.

7

HE THOUGHT TO GO TO THE PUB. HE WAS TIRED OF magicks, of spells, of mixing potions. He wanted some light, some music, some conversation that didn’t center on the white or the black, or the end of all he knew.

The end of all he loved.

And maybe, just maybe, if Alice happened to be about, he’d see if she was still willing.

A man needed a distraction, didn’t he, when his world hung in the balance of things? And some fun, some warmth. The lovely, lovely sound of a woman moaning under him.

Most of all, a man needed an escape when the three most important women in his life decided to have a wedding-planning hen party—not a term he’d use in their hearing if he valued his skin—in his home.

But he’d no more than walked outside when he realized he didn’t want the pub or the crowd or Alice. So he pulled out his phone, texted Fin on his way to his lorry.

House full of women and wedding talk. If you’re there, I’m coming over.

He’d no more than started the engine when Fin texted back.

Come ahead, you poor bastard.

On a half laugh he pulled away from the cottage.

It would do him good, Connor decided, after most of a day huddled with his sister over spell books and blood magicks to be in a man’s house, in male company. Sure they could drag Boyle down as well, have a few beers, maybe play a bit of snooker in what he thought of as Fin’s fun room.

Just the antidote to a long and not quite satisfying day.

He took the back road, winding through the thick green woods on an evening gone soft and dusky. He saw a fox slink into the green, a red blur with its kill still twitching in its jaws.

Nature was as full of cruelty as of beauty, he knew all too well.

But for the fox to survive, the field mouse didn’t. And that was the way of things. For them to survive, Cabhan couldn’t. So he who’d never walked into a fight if he could talk his way out of one, had never deliberately harmed anyone, would kill without hesitation or guilt. Would kill, he admitted, with a terrible kind of pleasure.

But tonight he wouldn’t think of Cabhan or killing or surviving. Tonight all he wanted was his mates, a beer, and maybe a bit of snooker.

Less than a half kilometer from Fin’s, the lorry sputtered, bucked, then died altogether.

“Well, fuck me.”

He had petrol, as he’d filled the tank only the day before. And he’d given the lorry a good going-over—engine to exhaust—barely a month before.

She should be running smooth as silk.

Muttering, he pulled a torch from the glove box and climbed out to lift the bonnet.

He knew a thing or two about engines—as he knew a thing or two about plumbing, about carpentry and building, and electrical work. If the hawks hadn’t taken him heart and mind, he might have started his own business as a man of all work.

Still, the skills came in handy in times such as these.

He played the light over the engine, checked the battery connection, the carburetor, flicked a hand to have the key turn in the ignition, studied the engine as it attempted to turn over with an annoying and puzzling grind.

He couldn’t see a single thing amiss.

Of course, he could have solved it all with another flick of his hand and been on his way to mates, beer, and possibly snooker.

But it was a matter of pride.